Careers & Marketing in Sports – Key Vocabulary

Introduction to Careers in Sports

• Goal: Provide an introduction to careers in sports, how to get started, build a resume, and become a lifelong professional.
• Useful Facts and Figures: Information about working in sports.
• Hiring Process: How to position yourself to potential employers.

Recap of Course Learnings

• Purpose: Reflect on concepts learned throughout the course.
• Final Exam: Not cumulative but includes an essay question requiring reflection on course concepts.
• Application: Concepts from any chapter can be used in the essay.
• Objective: Review key topics to tie together learnings and set the stage for future studies.

Marketing Myopia (Chapter 1)

• Definition: Lack of foresight in marketing ventures.
• Examples:
  • Kodak: Failed to foresee the digital film revolution, leading to bankruptcy.
  • Blockbuster: Missed the digital revolution and streaming, declined to buy Netflix.
• Goal: Understand the environment and anticipate future trends.
• Importance: Knowing the history of sports and trends to understand the future(point 4).

Macro Forces (Chapter 2)

• Framework: STEEP (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental, Political).
• Application: Understanding societal impacts on sports.
• Example: NFL and player safety trends.
• COVID-19: Political consequences of lockdowns on economies.
• Key takeaway: Awareness of external forces beyond the sports world.
• Difference between external and internal: STEET vs. VRIO & Porter's 5 forces

Competitive Value Creation

• Marketing Goal: Create, communicate, and deliver value to customers.
• Orientation: Customer-centric marketing.
• Challenge: Balancing competing stakeholders.
• Examples:
  • Fan Engagement: Cannot simply give star player's contact info to a fan.
  • Player Outreach: Balancing player availability with customer needs.
• Stakeholders: Owners, leagues, governing bodies, taxpayers.
• Emphasis: Proposing solutions that work for all stakeholders.

Data and Analytics (Chapter 4)

• Objective: Using data to drive decision-making.
• Importance: Defining the problem appropriately.
• Example: Chef Ramsey identifies the food quality as the main issue in struggling restaurants.
• Concept of Group Think: Overlooking easy solutions due to ingrained assumptions.
• Example pulling wheelbarrows: Missing obvious problems

Design

• Scope: Design impacts everything.
• Impact: Small design changes can have massive effects.
• Examples:
  • Restaurant Reservations: Small changes improve customer turnout.
  • Hotel Towel Reuse: Incentivizing guests to participate in environment sustainability.
  • Obama Campaign: Changing a button and a picture brought in 60,000,000 million.
• Issue: Business school graduates can be awful at design
• Importance: Learning Design Thinking Mindset: critical

Consumer Behavior

• Focus: Understanding consumer biases and behavior.
• Example: Jeremy Lin's NBA career and biases against Asian athletes.
• Orchestra Tryouts: Removing visual biases led to a 50/50 gender split.
• Importance: Questioning biases and using consumer behavior insights to interact effectively with customers.
• Consumer Behavior Aspects: values or persuasion

Market Research

• Caution: Bad market research is worse than no research.
• Example: Gerber's failed expansion into Africa due to not accounting for literacy rates.
• Solution: Appropriate market research and asking the right questions to prevent failures.

Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning (STP)

• Psychographic Segmentation: Tailoring ads based on personality traits.
• Example: Differentiating ads for conscientious vs. extroverted car buyers.
• Conscientiousness: Providing details, facts, and information.
• Extroversion: Highlighting excitement and simplicity.
• Objective: Understanding consumers and pressing hot buttons for better communication and positioning.

Product

• Core Customer Value: Differentiating between product and core customer value.
• Example: Toyota's shift from a car company to a mobility company.
• Vision: Rebranding using the Olympics to emphasize mobility.

Media

• Value of Sports Media: High value due to live, dynamic content.
• Dominance: Sports often dominate the top shows each year.
• Appeal: Unpredictability and live entertainment value.
• Value of Live Entertainment: Companies vie for consumer attention.
• Aim: Understanding media dynamics and stakeholders in sports.
• Appointment Viewing: Live events with John Skipper

Sponsorship

• Aspects: Sponsorships, endorsements, and marketing communication plans.
• Credibility: Sponsorships must be credible.
• Fit: Evaluating the fit of endorsements.
• Example: LeBron James or Shaquille O'Neal endorsing a Buick - is that really a good fit?
• Strategic Linkages: Self-evident linkages make sponsorship work.
• Activation: Enhancing sponsorship effectiveness.

Ticketing, Facilities, and Events

• Esports

• Core Customer Value: Entertainment.

• Understanding Customer Desires: Entertainment from various sources.

• Need to be able to use course concepts in internships and future courses

What We Haven't Learned

• Work Experience: Requires internships and tangible experience.
• Leadership: Difficult to lead diverse groups with different backgrounds and learning styles.
• Sports Business Associations: Ways to find volunteer and leadership positions
• Effective Communication: Requires awareness of time spent on texting and social media.
• Teamwork: Requires effective communication with team members.
• Networking: Building relationships and rapport with others.

Unfortunate Realities

• Increasing Competition: More colleges offering degrees in sports.
• Supply and Demand: Limited job opportunities compared to the number of applicants.
• Goal: To crush your dream and help you get there
• Loving vs. Working in Sports: Being able to do the job well.
• Red Flag Answer: Saying you want to work in sports because you love sports is the exact wrong answer.
• Better Answer: Explain how you want to create lifelong moments for others by connecting them with brands.

Hiring Process

• It's not who you know, it's who knows you.

• Average Job Opening: Attracts 250 resumes with only 2% (about 5) getting an interview.

• Keyword Filters: Automated filters looking for specific skills.

• Tailored Resumes: Importance of tweaking resumes to each individual position.

• Time to Fill: Average can take 22-23 days so stay on top of communication.

What it is Like to Work on Sports

• The work ethic can be brutal

Leadership Limitations/statistics in the NBA

• Gender: 30 out of 30 general managers are male.

• College Degrees: 30 out of 30 general managers graduated college.

• College Basketball: Over half played college basketball.

• Emphasis on Analytics: Opening doors for more diverse backgrounds.

How to break into the world of Sports

• Sports Information directors.

• Sports Physicians and Sports Psychologists.

• Sports and nutrition / strength and conditioning / massage therapy

• Broadcasting

• Op's Side - Marketing director.
  Community relations director / ticketing op's/ Events.

• Youth sports administrators /rec managers

• Sports Products

• Traditional company with sports relations
  *Cost and Benefits

• 15 Games can be brutal - But you get to experience championship feats!

• You work 80 hours a week for low wages (36k average)

The Importance of Internships

• Learning what you don't wanna do

• Connecting with other people to network.

Standing Out

Four-Step Process For How to find a job

• Think about what job you want / day you graduate.

• Gap Analysis - Evaluate what your skills are and what they're looking for.

*Gain the Requisite experience

• Apply Strategically.

Strategic Applying

STAR - Situation / Task / Action/ Results

resume line examples - From managing day to day task to building client task

Develop a journal of wins. That way you have everything planned out.

Websites to find job listings.

• D1 ticker.

*Teamwork online.
*NCA(National Collegiate Athletic Association)

Understanding entry level jobs.

Some of the Tools to use or Skills to acquire at ASU

• Innovation portfolio

• Handshake

• Academic Success Portfolio

You can literally start doing your own work and publish it for people to see / read and give you feedback on / low stress

Communicating Effectively

The exceptional presenter : Anyone can be good at communicating if the take the time to practice. O P E N U P

Albert Moranbian's communication model - We are bad at Communicating

Words we say (7%)

Voice and tone (38%)

Non-verbals body Language (55%)

The Final Exam Prompt

The opportunity to show your all the skills you've acquire - baseball organizations

what would you do on day one? and introduce some of the problems in the first prompt